Thank dear baby Jesus, and find your music.
New Year’s Eve is when we collectively take stock and try to mentally ready ourselves to take necessary next steps in the year to come. We gather with family, friends, and colleagues and celebrate year’s end and new beginnings. It is a farewell and a welcome accompanied by a musical backdrop and a countdown…
Sometimes our New Year’s anticipation is more akin to running the Mogadishu mile while we collectively mutter…
Good riddance and thank the dear baby Jesus we made it out of that mess.
The best celebrations culminate with a kiss and a reaffirmation of past promises to march into the future hand-in-hand with the people around you. The last few years have blessed me with a long unbroken chain of clasped hands and buttressed resolve; more than I would have ever thought possible.
If we are wise, we give ourselves time to reflect on the year, its seasons, and hopes for the future, while seeking solace from hobbies, sports, art, or spiritual and other philosophical outlets.
We are encouraged to stop, even just for a while, and listen to the music.
It has been a long year. It has been the longest year of my life. I never stopped to reflect in 2021 or 2022. The dissonant tune hardly noticed but taking shape in December 2019 was on a progressively slower, louder fractal loop as we lumbered through each interminable month. The countdown decelerated to a near standstill and the general public appeared more than willing to ignore obvious lies.
It was the musical equivalent of a three-year ritardondo.
What is slower than adagio... Small steps by small men.
It felt like there was no time for the indulgences of self care. It felt like one long unending conflict. The fatigue wasn’t just a result of my role in legal battles challenging the federal government’s handling of the pandemic; there was an onslaught of questionable information that forced some of us to reevaluate foundational truths.
I’ve found myself ruminating on a few…
Was the federal government engaged in systematic, intentional circumvention of first amendment protections? Were a cabal of unelected bureaucrats censoring American citizens through public-private partnerships? Was it global?
Would current and former government officials use their positions of influence to sway election results? Would they blame it on Russia? Iran? China? North Korea? Maybe libertarian led Argentina? You pick your favorite rogue state, strategic rival, or convenient boogey man.
Were military methods commonly associated with psychological operations being employed against citizens, civilians… fellow Americans? Were these operations part of a plan to sway elections, support pharmaceutical interests, or hide wrongdoing? Were those measures just another tool to protect the public?
How far would governments go to protect citizens from themselves? Would they pass laws to restrict us from engaging in risky yet previously legal behavior? Who decides one’s personal level of risk tolerance? The State? Unelected bureaucrats? Can I make my own decisions?
Maybe we can repurpose old legislation if our legislature fails to act. How about the Patriot Act? Maybe FISA 702 can be expanded to meet the needs of expanding needs?
Could the executive issue executive orders even if it stood on dubious constitutional grounds? Would that permit the sprawling civil service to lumber into action? Maybe that permits dispatch of law enforcement? Can’t have an order without disciplinary action for non-compliance, right?
Has our justice system been weaponized? Can someone help me understand the difference between a riot and an insurrection? Remind me again, who has been convicted of instigating or participating in an insurrection?
The government often reserves the right to keep “all options on the table.” Perceived or objectively true, is partisan lawfare part of the permanent arsenal of options we keep with the silver cutlery and other formal table settings?
Are our leaders wizened enough to know that some options should never be on the table?
Are destruction of oil pipelines or the sale of oil reserves to strategic rivals a viable strategy for international stability? World peace?
Is nuclear conflict with Russia still on the table?
Should I start building an underground bunker? Should I ready a couple years of non-perishable food in the event of a long nuclear winter? I survived three long COVID winters without a vaccine, but I guess I am just lucky and fortune’s patience may be wearing thin.
I sure hope our food processing plants, energy reserves, and medical facilities are prepared. Those require a lot of support and a functional railway. I am sure we’ve identified why all those trains keep derailing, right?
Do we back Ukraine’s right to expel foreign invaders? Should US blood and treasure be spent even when most US citizens can’t find Kiev on a map? Do Americans realize Ukraine is an agriculture bread basket for Eastern Europe? Do Americans know what happens when food security is threatened?
Thankfully our vast bread basket isn’t under threat from malicious actors.
I wonder if average Americans could articulate in one voice, across ethnic, cultural, and political lines, our foreign policy vis-à-vis Ukraine?
Maybe we should ask for a thorough accounting of foreign aid before we make updated foreign policy decisions? We probably shouldn’t ask DOD to help though… They occasionally lose track of how much money is spent and have a heck of a time passing an audit.
I am not sure we can count on private sector help either. SBF and FTX Invested
funneleda lot of currency in Ukraine, but I am still unsure where it all went. Perhaps members of Congress can help answer that question?Maybe Congress can reallocate some Ukraine funding to expel foreign invaders coming from our southern border? Is border security really racist or is it about our right to self-defense?
Do we back a nation’s right to self-defense in the face of terrorism? Do we back it with the blood and treasure from our nation’s people? Do we support that right even when it could result in nuclear conflict sparked by a holy war.
If our last resort, nuclear conflict, is on the table whenever a nettlesome foreign conflict emerges, why would our elected leaders agree to keep it as the foreign policy centerpiece? Are they compromised by the military industrial complex, political expediency, or something else?
Who is on the Epstein client list?
Is it possible to live under a compromised, puppet government being run behind the scenes by unscrupulous and immoral political actors? Were those adjectives redundant? I mean all the adjectives…
If it is possible to run a shadow government, what other parts of our society are a Potemkin village? Are our academic elite, media darlings, and philanthropic institutions operating independent of political influence? Corporate influence? Government influence?
Will a scientific paper get published if it runs counter to pharmaceutical or big tech interests?
Will they media publish news if their advertisers offer protest? Let’s ask Pfizer.
Could I get a knock on the door by the IRS because I choose to engage in non-profit activity perceived to be counter to the current political regime’s objectives? Could that happen to journalists?
What happens when the next regime realizes I am just as vociferously opposed to similarly unconstitutional overreach? I dislike both wings of the uniparty.
Will they restrict my right to descriptively refer to cabals of elected officials playing partisan team sports as a regime?
Will the government claim I am involved in partisan activity, when I challenge unconstitutional acts primarily carried out by one or another of these cabals? Will they accuse me of participating in the very activity in which they have been engaged?
Will these jujitsu attacks lead to self censorship? Will I be forced to vocalize two and two equal five?
Maybe my refusal to acknowledge the fallacy that ‘gender is fluid’ could get me a knock on the door by child protective services. Maybe if I speak that truth too loudly… and we continue to allow for first amendment caveats… the second visitor will be a dispatch from law enforcement. Could that happen?
How many people will they have to arrest and isolate to keep disallowed speech from being virally spread? How will they restrict that speech? Are we no longer in a world of psychological operations? Are we in a world of cognitive operations?
Is this about more than free speech? Is this about freedom of thought?
What is so fundamentally damaging to world stability that we need to begin manipulation of cognitive functions? What could seize up our collective psyche on a global scale and require state intervention in the form of thought control?
Are state-sponsored cyber criminals going to take down the internet? Do we need thought control to protect us from a cyber attack… Whose thoughts are we trying to control, ours or the criminals?
Maybe they need to make sure we remain blissfully unaware of state sponsored attacks on the internet, to protect us from… who, ourselves? Are there too many dangerous ideas floating around the interwebs? Has it gotten so bad, we need to just hit reset?
No, world governments wouldn’t harm its own citizens in a cyber attack of that nature, right? How would we know how much tax we owe them for their protection?
Maybe they have been keeping lists to keep track of citizens. Those lists will keep us safe. I just had to give my information to the CDC to check in for my flight. For contact tracing…
See. Lists must keep us safe.
If world governments did orchestrate a devastating cyber attack to shut down the internet, wouldn’t they have to hit reboot on just about everything. How would they do that?
I don’t know … Maybe we could start over with a digital currency and a list of everyone’s financial transactions and keep it on a new, highly protected, but definitely not decentralized ledger of financial transactions. If they make the currency programmable, then we won’t accidentally buy something harmful to self, like ivermectin. They can just program those transactions out of existence.
Lucky us.
Wonder if they could make something like that happen? Thankfully, we wouldn’t need all those local community-based banks if that happened. The ones that retain higher levels of capitalization, and engage in community-based lending with known entities to reduce financial risk. They were struggling anyhow, right?
No, I am convinced an attack on the internet would have to be cybercriminals just looking to burn it all down. We need the government to protect us from these miscreants. That makes way more sense, because most cyber criminals aren’t interested in making money from the cyber world, they are all about ideological warfare.
I think whatever might make people consider cognitive warfare would have to be meant for good. I think they want to protect us from something much bigger than just a simple cyber attack. It would have to be on a scale on par with… I don’t know… perhaps… an EMP attack disabling both cyber and physical infrastructure for our financial, communication, and energy grid all at once. Something that fries everyone’s electronics and data, throwing our entire civilization into the stone age.
Not even blue colored roofs could stop something that devastating. With just the right messaging, I bet they could predict and prevent another government from going rogue and doing exactly that.
A black swan event of that magnitude could never happen, right?
It just dawned on me. I am already almost convinced it couldn’t happen.
Thought control is working!
If it works on me, just think how effective this cognitive warfare has been on the enemies of America? Sleep tight citizens, our thoughts are being reshaped.
Given my newly acquired state-sponsored thoughts, I am a little embarrassed to admit, my wrong-think could still need work. I still have some nagging questions in the back of my mind.
I know I shouldn’t.
I don’t really know what threshold would make good men and women contemplate thought control, but if there isn’t a good reason, then maybe it is an evil reason, or am I being too conspiratorial? It is a whole lot easier to believe in brimstone, sulfur, and eternal damnation than eternal salvation, so maybe…
I just don’t think we possess the technology to make cognitive warfare an easy feat… or do we? AI is moving at leaps and bounds, but I suspect an EMP attack might be a more achievable goal even if it might sweep the most powerful tools needed for real advances in thought control off the playing field: the internet and Central Bank Digital Currencies… You know programmable but definitely not decentralized digital money you can use on things like insect burgers, and just enough natural gas to heat your home through late November. If we all sacrifice for the common good, we might get stipends for Christmas.
You can’t cook with that gas either.
If evil isn’t at play, or even if it is only part of the calculus, I am left wondering what is so dangerous, that thought control is the only path forward? I pray we know what to do when confronted with this dilemma.
… But yea… still worried here. Wrong think! Damn your infectious nature!
Maybe even my last refuge of stability is under assault, and not by the mediocre screeches of vagina hat wearing upper middle-class suburbanites complaining about their public school’s lack of drag queen story hour.
Do world governments possess extra-terrestrial technology and biologics? Are there corporate entities in possession of this material? What happens to religion when there is a possibility of life beyond the firmament?
How could all this be kept secret?
Not sure I meant to drag you through my rabbit hole, but I feel a lot better getting that off my chest … Still… not really feeling a whole lot better.
Why?
Those questions make us all feel small. Insignificant. Powerless.
That is the point. Small people take small strides. If we are awakening to an unseen world, doesn’t that make the world much bigger? If the world is bigger and we feel like we haven’t changed, aren’t we made smaller, more distant?
Destinations take longer to reach with shorter legs, right? Are we slowed to a standstill?
If truth and justice have been effectively displaced, transplanted beyond our locomotive powers, are we destined to be confined to our fifteen minute cities and the limits of our carbon footprint? Even if our voice remains undiminished, the heroic songs we might sing in protest become little more than murmurs by the time our distant friends can recognize the meaningful beat tapping on their eardrums.
We become divided by geography. The smallest people are bound together in small groups, never able to speak in one voice loud enough to be heard. The power to divide people is the power to control.
Powerless people don’t fight back. They don’t celebrate, embrace those most dear, and bring in the New Year with Auld Lang Syne.
A fugue: Musical reminders from the past.
The Scottish classic Auld Lang Syne originated in 1711 by James Watson, but many associate the current midnight ballad with poet Robert Burns’ 1788 composition. Some say it originated far earlier, and was passed down in Scottish folks tunes. It has beat the test of time, because it is good music… and it might even be great.
Its staying power might be aided by the fact that it is easy enough for the drunk and melodically challenged to get through every verse with minimal assistance.
Great music like Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is timeless, because it speaks to one’s soul. Music is the most primal form of communication and it needs no translation. Words spoken in the right tone and tenor, conveyance of thought with subtlety and grace is a lot like music. Obviously, words speak to you in a literal sense, but expression often requires a musical quality to be persuasive.
Why do we need that intangible melodic rhythm to really communicate effectively?
I believe music interacts in tangible ways with the ineffable essence of humanity. It leaves its mark on our whole being and on the spark of divinity that’s snapped into existence the moment we are conceived. I have insufficient terms to describe why musical qualities communicate with the grist that makes us human, but … I will try to offer a mediocre apophatic description.
Music and that which carries musical qualities speaks to us because we are not evil. The unique quality of man, our divine spark, can only be described by what it lacks, because their are no words that capture our unique mixture of goodness and potential. I do not subscribe to the Hobbesian view of man, nor have a written a philosophical treatise to support my opinion.
I knew the moment my son was born.
Maybe our souls are lit by a spark from the Divine, or maybe our unique relationship with the musical qualities of communication are simply because we are the best version of an ape lumbering around our planet. Humans are powerfully bright. Our light can be dimmed by our poor choices, but we are blessed from birth with goodness and potential. Only God knows with certainty, but I know what I believe.
Is it so unthinkable that generational music somehow leaves an epigenetic mark on our psyche? Many profound sayings are quoted and become part of the vernacular without knowing from whose wisdom those words emerged. Sometimes the same metaphors, allegories, fables, and myths emerge spontaneously from distant cultures and languages.
We know that the environment, microscopic particles, and even waves of energy can have a physical effect on our health. We know that words can have a profound impact long after they have been consumed. Why would it be so outlandish to extrapolate that sound waves might also have the same somatic effect?
Maybe that is why music sometimes feels like a religious experience. It draws out emotions on a primal level; it whispers the possibility of communion with something greater. No one knows the tone or tenor of the first version of Auld Lang Syne’s oral tradition, but I like the thought of familiar melodies echoing down in slight variations from from generation to generation.
A father’s love of something beautiful can be retained long after he passes away. I would love the same for my son. I like the idea that my father listened to Sam Cooke’s 1960 classic Chain Gang so many times it could explain some of my youthful brushes with law enforcement … And not just because it absolves me of some of my guilt.
I doubt that argument would stand up in court.
It is comforting to think, time doesn’t change what is artistically pleasing, nor can it change the soul of humanity. We retain our love, sadness for loss, curiosity, hope for the future, and our potential despite changes in the world.
Auld Lang Syne harmonizes melancholy and hope into a musical description of two good friends catching up over a drink. Their friendship is deep, despite distance and time. The tune expresses nostalgia for lost youth, regret for distance, warmth of relationship, and gratitude for the opportunity of one more year.
I wasn’t singing Auld Lang Syne in December 2020. After a year of being ostracized for questioning obvious lies, and being dumbfounded that so few people were perceiving the world differently, my music changed.
I started beating the drums. I am sad to admit, quietly at first. I felt feckless, but I wanted to express my frustration. The sound need not have been beautiful, I just needed to hit something.
When lies become common, truths are whispered, and we begin to question our perception of events.
In January 2021, it was like two competing rhythms. The world’s rhythm slowed, while mine quickened and shed the frivolity of harmony, melody, or musical breaks. By Summer 2021, the rhythmic pattern was that of war drums, and in September 2021, I began blowing horns to call the willing into action. People and institutions I loved were under attack by apathy, incompetence, and evil.
We were at war and we might still be.
That is the thing about old friends, family, and other loved ones… the people who meet you on New Year’s eve to share a drink and stories… they show up when you need them.
You don’t have to ask.
A concerti in four pieces.
When we started our legal battles, the first friends to arrive were the ones who knew what a war drum meant. Loved ones most close to me knew exactly what it meant, and knew I was not backing down. My family offered concerned counsel and they were more than willing to bear a shield and the weight of other responsibilities. They protected me, carried more than their weight, and have suffered equally.
The first time I met some of my fellow travelers, was only after beating my metaphorical drum. I like to think it validates the primal nature of music, pure truthful communication. Melodies can be drawn from our DNA, and even if the tune is not one we’ve ever heard before, we know a version has been played many times.
It resonates deeply.
We instinctively know what that deep rhythmic percussive sound means. It sounds like truth. The recognition of one truth made it easier to identify complimentary rhythms and melodies. Our network of federal employees found other civil servants banging music out like crazed berserkers.
When I say friends “…knew what a war drum meant…” I meant that literally. Friends who served with me at Ranger Battalion two decades prior were the first to show up. Many of the people I had only just met, but were filling in the foxholes on either side of me, were people who had served on the front lines of the Global War on Terror and in other conflict zones.
If words can be musical, I suspect they recognized a familiar melody before many others were able to name the song. The government was signing a tune that sounded a lot like psychological operations, the use of which had only previously been permitted on foreign fields of battle.
We didn’t protect the rights of Americans only to have those same military tactics inverted to steal those rights. Information warfare is not a targeted weapon. It is a shot gun blast, a grenade, or claymore mine. When you use a claymore, face towards enemy is printed in plain English on the front. In what direction did government officials plant these indiscriminate explosives?
After President Biden issued Executive Orders (EO) 14042 and 14043, fall and winter 2021 and early 2022 was a frantic blur. Marcus Thornton, Megan Guerrero, Brian Lombardi, and I cofounded Feds for Medical Freedom, recently renamed Feds for Freedom (F4F). We sought funding, grew our membership, and we had to do everything simultaneously.
We built the car as we rolled it out of the garage.
Our legal battles may have started in the cool comfort of fall, but it felt like we were in the heat of high noon summer. Federal government employees who refused COVID-19 experimental mRNA injections were going to be fired on 21 November 2021. My agency was drawing up plans to identify teams to walk employees out of secured facilities. Federal Departments were illegally collecting information about employee’s religious beliefs, subjecting those belief’s to committee review, and engaging in discriminatory practices intended to coerce compliance.
If this were a musical piece, it would have been Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. We sat through the first of the four violin concerti, Concerto No. 1 in E major, Spring, unaware that 2020 and most of 2021 was just the first of four musical pieces. On 9 September 2021, Spring ended with EOs 14042 and 14043.
We squandered spring.
In the Spring of COVID, no one enjoyed the health establishment’s nonsensical approach to handling the pandemic. It was absurd to think medical professionals didn’t understand basics like herd immunity, the difference between infection fatality rate and case fatality rate, natural immunity, or the dangers of vaccination campaigns during a supposed pandemic.
Generally speaking, Americans are optimistic and generous. We look for silver linings and often try to make the best of bad situations. In some cases, the experimental injections became the means by which people could show their sacrifice for others. While it was concerning to observe the origins of SARS-CoV-2 being obfuscated, the health establishment’s willful ignorance of the existence of cheap repurposed and effective remedies, and the politicization of medical care, I think most people chose to ignore the potential for criminal wrong doing and fraud.
Average citizens sincerely wanted to believe they were doing the right thing.
Many federal employees enjoyed the new found opportunity to work from home, and some employees working in classified spaces were paid to stay home. So, even if the experts were acting like clowns, many federal employees were simply enjoying more time with family and more time for self-care, but displayed their own form of willful ignorance when confronted with the damage to children’s education, care for the elderly, and the obvious economic devastation.
For many people, the growing list of problems weren’t an issue until they were personally affected. Many colleagues of mine were perfectly happy to be paid to stay home. I think they should have taken a good hard look at the small businesses that were failing in record numbers, or the rewards corporate giants were reaping when government bureaucrats were allowed to determine which businesses were essential. Weed outlets and liquor stores stayed open while gyms were closed. How does that make any sense?
One might offer applause before Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Summer began and Concerto No. 1 ended, but for the unvaccinated, there was no ending in sight by New Year’s Eve 2021 we were deep in legal battles. The events of 2020 continued onward and we squandered our opportunity to begin fighting the lies before the vaccines were ever produced. There was no indication of new beginnings or endings worthy of celebration.
I wasn’t singing Auld Lang Syne… not yet.
Summer felt like anthropogenic global warming.
When the Summer of COVID started on 9 September 2021 with issuance of EOs 14042 and 14043, the government made it artificially hot. They claimed the heat was caused by all the non-compliant science deniers contributing to vaccine hesitancy. Irresponsible humans were responsible for the pandemic, not their botched response or their monomaniacal insistence on solely using a dangerously flawed product.
It definitely was not just a bold faced lie… says shifty public health officials who refuse eye contact while awkwardly tracing circles on the floor with the tips of their dancing shoes.
It is like claiming humans are responsible for climate change while seeding clouds to change the climate. Yea, the pilots and the all the people catering to the flight might be responsible, but the claims are a little too broad. Climate alarmists will claim that climate change isn’t caused by elites on private jets or geological events or our natural, cyclical rotations around the sun. It must be irresponsible poor people burning coal to keep warm… and not die in the dead of winter.
Climate change needs a villain and so did the pandemic. The government used the same apophatic approach to identify the COVID villain, but when the list of people who weren’t responsible and the levied threats barked at upstart citizens with questions ran out, they gave up and named the unvaccinated.
It wasn’t China… Careful, this one might make you a racist.
It wasn’t the Wuhan Institute of Virology… Also Racist.
It wasn’t Dr. Shi Zhengli… OK, now you’re definitely a racist; maybe a mysogynist too.
It wasn’t EcoHealth Alliance… You’re doing InDePeNdEnT ReSeArCh. How quaint.
It wasn’t Peter Daszak… Are you a science denier?
It wasn’t USAID… You hate poor people and the disadvantaged.
It wasn’t Dr. Ralph Baric… Yep… you are a science denier.
It wasn’t NIH… Science denier, you keep this up authorities might have to report you to the CDC.
It wasn’t CDC… Now you are just trying to make them irritated by forcing a denial. You know CDC only helped with the cover up.
It wasn’t Dr. Francis Collins… Hey Science denier! NIH and CDC just added you to their list.
It wasn’t NIAID… Careful.. there are other lists.
It definitely isn’t Dr. Anthony Fauci… Congrats, your entrance on a new list entitles you to be messed up six ways from Sunday.
Since it isn’t anybody … OK, FBI is going to follow you into Sunday mass and we’ve decided the unvaccinated are at fault. I suppose you’re happy with all your independent research.
Our metaphorical spring came and went. While most of us were blissfully unaware of what was to come, the unvaccinated were acutely aware. The world was being divided. We were already in a highly tribal culture, but it seemed like this was an artificial disunity, like it had been carefully crafted and planned by committee.
Politics and media spent the last few decades training Americans that the other side of an argument was not just wrong, they were probably evil. Stupid? Maybe fascist? They could be Nazis? We’ve been made to believe that every election, every Supreme Court decision, every societal crisis is a war for the soul of America.
There is no grace in war. If everything is a war… then grace can’t exist. Perhaps our foreign policy experts need to hear this…
The government’s lies, fraudulent behavior, and cognitive operations stoked the division. The injected were led to believe the unvaccinated were the cause of the societal problems. Those who declined the shot were convinced the vaccinated either bent the knee, were compromised, or lacked the intellect to perceive the danger these products posed.
I hardened to the other side of the argument. It was difficult to remain objective when you were living the absurd irony of being called a racist while being subjected to discrimination. Less forgiving or not, I flinched at some of the extreme things being said on both sides of the argument.
I overheard a normally considerate colleague tell a group of fellow agency employees that she hoped the unvaccinated died. She felt that religious and other suspicious objections to experimental products was the equivalent of murder. I got up out of my cubicle and asked her to sincerely consider if in her reasonable opinion, I had ever acted in a manner where she might draw the conclusion that I wished her harm.
Her response was silence.
I may have detected embarrassment. At the time I assumed it was because she was overheard, vice any self doubt in her position. Wounded animals backed into a corner don’t wait to determine friend or foe, they offer no grace in the face of conflict. It is fight or flight, and I was wounded by the treatment of my colleagues. I chose fight and I certainly wasn’t graceful. In retrospect, I was harsh with a young, talented coworker when I personalized her boorish commentary. She may have sincerely feared SARS-CoV-2, and perhaps her views have changed with time.
Conversely, I hate the term pure blood.
It evokes historical references I find repulsive. For most of us who refused the SARS-CoV-2 product, it is inaccurate. Many of us have been subjected to other vaccines and products that may alter our long-term health. We can quibble over the difference between SARS-CoV-2 gene therapies and traditional vaccines, but if I have learned anything over the last three years, we know very little about the long term effects of any vaccination.
I am not a pure blood. I never will be.
I believe the term is designed to claim moral and genetic superiority, at a time when we really just need unity. Many vaccinated already disgustingly equate our positions with those of the Nazis. I have no ability to follow the logic behind those type of inflammatory accusations, but I prefer to deny them perceived evidence in support of their outrageous claims. If one must use that term, I think accuracy dictates that it should be reserved for individuals who have refused all vaccinations.
I have too many vaccinated people I love to ostracize them from my circle of trust. I would never willingly divide myself from these people. They make me whole. If the COVID pandemic was planned by committee, then it was evil and they want us divided. Let’s hedge our bets, stick to our refusnik sensibilities, and stymie further Machiavellian machinations by the cabal of unseen actors seeking to destroy our family, culture, society, and trust in institutions. Refuse to play the game; flip the game board.
Love they neighbor.
Summer rolled into autumn, but I couldn’t tell.
Love is immediately recognizable. It is better than logic, reason, or tables of data. It heals. It builds relationships. It inspires. Words can’t contain its meaning. Action is required when you love something. Like music, action needs no words.
Every time you keep a promise, act selflessly, or give your time and attention you demonstrate love. Sometimes keeping a promise means you must discipline yourself or others. I love my son and I want him to learn painful lessons as early as possible. Once he is an adult, his lessons from youth and the sense God gifted him are his only guide.
Thankfully, he has his mother’s wits.
Loving him requires I discipline him with empathy and consequences. He will be a better man and will know the world we want. A community based on blind justice and love, will demand excellence even if the mediocre manage to receive the spoils of his labor. I am not advocating he actively support those who will not support themselves, but he must be able to recognize when it is necessary by circumstance or the requirements of faith.
Discipline without malice is an act of love, and service with no expectation of adulation is noble. In our professional lives as federal government employees, it is part of our oath to the Constitution. As private citizens it is no less important.
When we acted to litigate against the government, it was an act of love. Our government’s leaders had been acting like petulant children and exceeded the limited authority that had been granted. Some of our leaders lied to justify their excesses, and the siblings in the bureaucratic class pretended nothing was happening.
Spankings were in order.
Many people heard our drums beating and joined the fight. The major battles determining the future outcome of these conflicts, my metaphorical summer of COVID, stretched for what seemed like an interminably long time. It absorbed all of our attention and we sacrificed other things we loved to see it to conclusion.
I don’t think we realized major conflict ended in September of 2022, when the 5th circuit court of appeals ruled in favor of Feds for Medical Freedom in a pivotal en banc ruling. At least, I didn’t. The heat of conflict had been so intense and damaging to both sides, I don’t think I was ready to let my guard down. I didn’t recognize we had slipped into Concerto No. 3 in F Major, Autumn.
When one side makes decisive wins, or attrition becomes too damaging to both sides, negotiation begins. September 2021 through September 2022 had been a summer-long roller coaster ride. In January 2022, Feds for Medical Freedom achieved a seemingly impossible win when the 5th circuit lower court issued a nationwide injunction against the mandate. In April 2022, a three judge panel from the 5th circuit court of appeals temporarily reversed the procedural decision, but the September 2022 en banc ruling left it in place. Details are included below.
The en banc ruling was appealed to the Supreme Court, but we should have realized, it didn’t matter. By Summer 2022, most of the COVID regulations were retracted, military mandates were further dismantled with provisions in the NDAA, and courts across the country were shredding what little was left of Biden’s pandemic response. Unfortunately, many of the deleterious vaccination side effects F4F members tried to warn their employers about were becoming evident.
Although I think someone could reasonably argue the December 2023 Supreme Court decision in favor of DOJ and the order vacating the lower court rulings was a loss that marked the end of major conflict, it wasn’t.
I won’t lie. It felt like a loss, but that is the response of a child.
You don’t always get a clear winner in any contest. In war, no one really wins, but the victor writes the history books. Without some pretty serious cognitive control operations, the Biden administration won’t be able to claim victory or dictate history’s narrative. He can hardly dictate off a teleprompter.
A group of federal government employees shut down an executive order for the whole of the federal government. The legal protections outlasted the pandemic and saved the jobs of hundreds of thousands of federal government employees. It protected the health of working age adults at almost no risk from serious COVID side effects.
We acted despite threats, coercion, loss of employment, and limited resources.
The federal government is the largest employer in the United States, if federal employees fell victim to vaccine mandates, the private sector would be next. F4F preserved the Constitutional rights of every American and prevented vaccine passports and mandated boosters.
It was a David and Goliath fight. David knocked the giant down, but he scrambled for cover before David could make the killing blow. Poets don’t sing epic battle Hyms in support of the state when the unlimited power of state has been fought to a standstill. Nor will they sing a song about a colossus crouching defensively behind a royal decree, pointing at it nervously and muttering…
See, the judge said I won and we can ignore the fact I got knocked on my ass.
Autumn is for finishing winter preparations.
I am not sure where the metaphorical COVID autumn ends and COVID winter begins, but I am ready to sing Auld Lang Syne this year. I am ready to say good bye to the past and welcome the future with my friends and colleagues.
Three years is too long to deny anyone that necessary and cathartic celebration.
Even though I didn’t realize negotiations between two opposing powers had begun in September 2022, and make no mistake Feds for Freedom has actual power, I was already in the process of my own personal negotiations. The thing about warfare, it is hard to adjust to what comes after it, and the truth is … unless you are a Keynesian who can conveniently ignore the broken window fallacy, both sides lose something in the process.
The US Government caused the loss of trust in our medical community and the HHS, CDC, FDA, NIH, and NIAID have been exposed as captured agencies. They permanently damaged public health, trust in our institutions, national defense and readiness, and our economy. Our international standing has accumulated the weight of decades of poor leadership and poor decisions, and our actions related to SARS-CoV-2 and the pandemic has only made it worse.
As an optimist and a conservative, I believe in our institutions. That is why 9500 Feds for Freedom members went to court to fight. Our institutions were under attack. I believe our country is not beyond the point of no return, but we are on a precipice and salvation only becomes a reality if others believe the same.
When asked, F4F lawyers commented that F4F won in court because we quickly organized and built a nationwide network of willing participants.
Numbers matter. Size matters.
I like to imagine just how big our organization might have been if the government hadn’t engaged in censorship. Many hands make light work and reduce cost.
Some of our members still need to finish paying their legal fees and we expect them to keep their promises. Like any group, some were hoping others would do the work for them. If you are claiming affiliation with Feds for Freedom, you are claiming a right to the spoils of victory.
There are no riches.
There are no legal fees being reimbursed.
No one will likely ever know that this group of people stopped vaccine passports and mandatory booster in the United States.
You get to claim you didn’t just talk about being on the right side of history, you acted.
So, if you owe money. Pay it. Otherwise, don’t claim victory. I am not interested in ringing in the New Year with pretenders, nor are the other members who carried their weight and more.
I have debts to pay as well.
I owe my closest loved ones for their sacrifices on my behalf. I have neglected those duties in pursuit of noble goals. We all have. By Summer 2022, I was no longer working for my agency as a result of my vocal opposition to mandates. It was the right thing to do and I don’t regret any of the decisions.
It was harder than I expected to leave. I hadn’t realized how much my profession had become part of me. I spent my adult life in government service because I viewed myself as a protector. I believed my role was to defend against all threats foreign and domestic. My self-worth was inextricably tied to my view of who I had become, this image I had carefully cultivated. I surrounded myself with colleagues who held similar views and objectively noble aspirations.
And then… I turned in my badge and I wasn’t that person anymore. There were no bullpen shenanigans with people I respected. I was left trying to navigate what came next when I never planned for what came next. I was a 50 year old respected, decorated federal government employee with a spotless career until I chose to question issues surrounding SARS-CoV-2.
I was profoundly unhappy.
It was discombobulating, but it deepened my religious belief, and convinced me that I had lost something over the years. It didn’t feel like it at the time, but I needed time for self-reflection. I began thinking about all of my relationships, the ones that had come and gone, the people who had impact in my life.
I called them. I sent emails. I reconnected.
Two of those friends were musicians.
Winter Preparations
My metaphorical autumn negotiations have been personal in nature. My family came first and then I began to look at all my other relationships critically. Late October of this year, I took a weekend trip to visit high school acquaintances in Southern Ohio. Dan and Scott are twin brothers, and we grew up in the same suburb of Cleveland. Our circle of friends overlapped, but we were never friends.
We were dead center generation X kids. High school can be a brutal time for any kid, but gen X kids practically raised themselves with a latchkey and microwave meals. Trolling was done face-to-face, the internet didn’t exist, cell phones were on Star Trek, parents were both working to make ends meet, and single parent homes were becoming the norm.
Without straying too far from the narrative… While the digital age made navigating the wonder years far more treacherous for the millennials and whatever label has been assigned to those born in the 21st century, it also enabled reconnection with those people who made my relatively sheltered existence special.
I hadn’t seen Scott since my family’s move to Detroit in 1988, but I ran into Dan at a mutual friend’s wedding in 2005. In 2015, that mutual friend reacquainted me with Dan’s continued artistic endeavors on Bandcamp, and I reached out on Facebook to say hello sometime in 2016.
I hate Facebook and I have a love-hate relationship with social media in general. For a variety of reasons, I didn’t get involved in social media until the Summer of 2015 when I signed up for Facebook. A couple years later I was surprised to discover that I had signed up for a Twitter account in 2011, but never used it. My first Tweet was in 2017 and had two others in 2018. Twitter, now rebranded as X, was just some oddity I rarely considered until COVID hit in 2020.
I fondly remembered Dan and Scott as talented musicians, creative, with a unique sense humor. I would like to think we are friends now, but prior to that weekend … at best … we were distant acquaintances who took a few decades to get reacquainted.
I doubt they gave me much thought at all. I skirted the edges of social circles but was never the center of any real attention. I was a 14-year-old grey man when we met. I didn’t look to be different or stand out and most of my adult life has been the same… but for very different reasons. Like almost everyone else, I just wanted to fit in.
As an adult, I rarely make a bad call on a man’s character. It’s been part of my professional responsibilities for a long time, so I like to think I have mastery of at least one art, even if my traditional artistic sensibilities are like neolithic depictions of the hunt… Slapped together like finger paints and shrouded in mystery and mystical significance mostly due to a profound lack of understanding.
Who really knows if teenage powers of perception have the depth necessary to properly evaluate the character of another person, but I drew positive conclusions about Dan and Scott soon after meeting them both in the halls of Fairview High school. Dan’s demeanor was sincere, serious, and thoughtful, and at times he seemed melancholy…
Introverts often do.
Scott was no less considerate, but his irreverent, self-deprecating humor made him the more approachable of the twins. They haven’t changed much and would chuckle at the thought of being viewed as individuals who might require an engineered approach vector, but contrary to their humble self-assessment… they were the cool kids.
They were talented, sharp-witted, and … they were in a band. I don’t remember all the iterations of the band, the names… the frequent drummer changes, but I remember thinking they were brave. It takes a lot to get in front of a crowd and perform.
I don’t recall exactly when, but I remember Scott playing a whole set of Violent Femmes covers at somebody’s backyard party and thinking there was no way he wasn’t going to get laid by some hottie … probably right after he finished the set. As the hunt for reciprocal sexual interest was an all-consuming topic amongst teenage boys, it should be obvious that he was a rare talent.
They didn’t just play covers. They played their own music, and it was good. I know “good” is a highly subjective term, but they drew crowds, they had a rabid fanbase, and they owned the stage without having three coats of Aquanet on their hair and shitty guy-liner accenting their teenage angst.
They played music that had the rawness of the Violent Femmes, the alternative indie feel of REM’s Green album when it hit the scene, and a sound refusing any easy categorization.
It takes a lot to put yourself out there playing the work of others, but it is an entirely different thing to lay bare your own creations. They were the real deal, artists and creators from a very young age. For the mass of pimply skinned, wanna-be heroes, struggling to make a mark and stand out in the crowd… They had defined themselves.
I am so grateful for that weekend. They differ with me on just about every issue I care about, but I deeply respect them and they live their values. They don’t just talk about the issues, they act. I won’t speak about their family, because I didn’t get prior permission, but they invited me to share time with their extended family and friends. We may not agree on many issues, but they are good people. I would trust them with my son.
It may seem a silly reason, but I reconnected with Dan in particular, because he released a song that captured how I had been feeling for the last three years perfectly.
Scott has been involved in a few different musical endeavors. I’ll share my favorite.
Check out Night Mayor when time permits.
Winter is Coming
I found what I lost and am ready for what comes next. I wish I could say when Concerto No. 4 in F Minor, Winter starts playing our situation is going to be good or easy, but I can’t.
When conflict ends, people take stock in what has been lost. I have no faith that the federal government won’t try to issue new vaccine mandates, and I don’t believe our example will inspire many more than have already stepped forward to risk their livelihoods for a noble purpose.
We must be more persuasive.
The government continues to establish policy in support of vaccine mandates. They have established intergovernmental agreements to facilitate bypassing State laws and protections. Existing case law has been considered moot, and other cases have never been heard. This administration has perfected the ‘catch me if you can’ lawfare model.
We have learned from our mistakes as well. It will be a difficult task when vaccine mandates reemerge… and they will, but we proved real effective dissent could be accomplished. DOJ’s last negotiation with the Supreme Court was a tacit admission that they lost. They needed our lower court wins off the books, because their speed of action combined with the slow court response ensured we never saw the full merits of our cases adjudicated.
It still didn’t stop them from losing. Losers lose, that’s what they do.
My short trip to Ohio, my State of birth and a place packed with personal history, balanced my thinking on a whole host of topics. I believe our society has reverted to viewing opposing views as some distorted caricature of reality. I have been just as guilty as others with differing views.
We have to stop doing that.
If any of the rabbit hole ruminations clattering around in my head come true, we need to be able to speak persuasively with people who may not agree. There is strength in numbers and we can’t afford to be playing team sports when elites have fomented our division specifically to distract from their team’s nefarious activities.
We weren’t made smaller by the unseen world revealed to us. The shape of the world never changed. Our perception widened, our vision peered into the dark places. We forced our spark of light to shine furiously, righteously.
We deserve an embrace and Happy New Year, so…
Have a glass of bubbly, kiss a loved one, and let’s watch the countdown that started in 2020 finally end.
Thank you for being strong and inspiring so many to stay committed to the truth!
Incredible post, James.